Ahmed Zaid

Ahmed Zaid (14 July 1965-22 June 2008) was a leader of the Special Groups in Iraq during the Iraq War. Commander of the Islamic Twilight Brigades, Zaid was funded with $1,600,000 a month by Iran. He was infamous for having only one ear, as his other one was lost during the Shi'ite rebellion against Saddam Hussein in 1992.

Biography
Ahmed Zaid was born on 14 July 1965 in Mosul, Iraq to a Shi'ite Muslim family. Zaid studied to become an imam, but under the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, he was unable to advance because he was not a Sunni Muslim. Ahmed Zaid joined the Shi'ite resistance against Ba'athist Iraq in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and lost an ear to an explosion caused by a Mi-24 helicopter attack during the 1992 revolt against Saddam by the Shi'ites and Kurds. Zaid lived in exile in Iran until 2003, when he returned to Iraq to fight against the United States. He was given $1,600,000 a month by the IRGC of Iran, and he founded the Islamic Twilight Brigades, one of the "Special Groups" of Shi'ite insurgents funded by Iran. Zaid was a major warlord in northern Iraq, and he fought against the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) group and other Sunni insurgents in Iraq. On 22 June 2008, he was killed in a drive-by shooting by men loyal to rival warlord Hussein Ghatawi in Mosul.